


Hell Bound

by jhoom



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22930189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jhoom/pseuds/jhoom
Summary: You wake up in Hell after your untimely demise, only to be offered a deal. Instead of being tortured for all eternity, you're offered a deal: round up souls that have escaped from Hell and earn your freedom.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so sometimes i come across [a prompt/idea](https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/190879686169/you-wake-up-in-hell-with-no-recollection-of-how) and my brain won't let it go... there are a lot of other things i should've been working on this week writing-wise, but this one's hounded me so much i couldn't let it go XD
> 
> i've posted parts of this already on 

It’s a good deal. You’d known that when you’d taken it, which is why you’d taken it so eagerly. It is a generous as fuck, for sure, but it’s a helluva a lot better than, well, Hell. 

Besides, this is important work.  _ Good _ work, more important than anything you’d done while alive, and it does feel almost an extension of the work you  _ had _ done while you were alive. A lawyer helping people escape their just desserts now responsible for bringing them back to atone for them. It balanced out, right? 

Someone must think so, if they were the ones who’d come up with the deal in the first place.

You sign the papers, reading the fine print carefully because the lawyer in you knows that something that seems too good to be true probably  _ is _ . It is legit, though, or as legit as a deal with Hell could possibly be. 

Bring in 100 escaped souls to save your own. Avoid the whole eternal punishment and get to make your case in front of the big pearly gates or whatever. 

Granted, they aren’t promising you admittance into the  _ other _ place, just a free pass from  _ this _ one. 

One problem at a time, you think. 

After you sign the papers with a pen you’re disappointed uses black ink instead of blood, they lead you to a room. A room on the border, one that occupies a place between worlds with a strange flux of time that’s both neverending yet somehow fast moving while being measured and precise. It makes your heart feel like it was both beating and stopped, like you were living between heartbeats even though you aren’t technically alive anymore, are you?

The room is lined with tools on both sides, stacked in row after row of shelves, and a single door on the far end set into a deep stone doorframe that looked absolutely ancient. You turn to ask them what exactly you’re supposed to do with all this junk and how to get started and all that, but there’s no one behind you and nothing but the smell of sulfur and brimstone in lieu of your escort. 

Okay then. Guess you’re on your own. 

They’ve left you out to dry with the whole training process, but again, Hell, so you’re not surprised. 

“Guess I’ll just…” and you putter around the room. 

You tinker with the items on the walls. There’s no apparent rhythm or reason to how things are organized, nor any obvious use for most of the objects you pick up. Where are the weapons, the rope, the cool gadgets that spies and bounty hunters use in movies? 

Instead you look at a metal bell, too afraid to ring it because it either does something terrible or it’s so boring and the disappointment would be too much.

Occasionally another agent comes through, grabs some items, and storms out the door at the far end of the room you haven’t explored yet. You get glimpses of a staircase going that led up up up. If you’re fast, you can wrangle the strangers in long enough to ask a question and hopefully get an answer. 

“What’s that?” 

A long, thin woman with yellowing eyes blinks at you once, twice. “Tracker. Push the button.” Then, as an after thought she adds, “Don’t let it blow up.” 

“Thanks—” you start, but she’s gone with the whoosh of her trenchcoat and the click of her heels.

“How do you trap—?” 

A small man, a foot shorter than you though with twice as much presence as you think you could ever muster even on your best day, glares up at you. 

“Third shelf, closest to the door, left side. If you get in my way again, I’ll use one on you.” 

That one does make you hesitate before asking someone else, and you let three or four opportunities slip by. You wait until a young man with a bit of a swagger, clearly in no rush, comes in and carefully inspects the items on the top shelf. He needs a ladder to do it, and still you hesitate until you see him give you a curious look. 

It’s an opening, and you take it.

“How do I even know who I’m looking for? Do I get a name? Do they tell me? Am I supposed to just go out there and… and  _ find _ people on my own?” you let out in a rush. 

Unlike everyone else, he actually doesn’t seem annoyed at the interruption to his work. 

“They’ll give you a name when you’re ready. All this crap—” He gestures to the room in a sweeping motion. “—it’s all designed to get the job done. Some of it’s useful, some of it’s not. Some of it’s wicked nasty, some of it’s mild, kiddie stuff. Play around with it until you figure out what you like. This, for example…” He holds up what appeared to be a pair of leather gloves, ordinary and boring and completely useless in hunting down the type of soul you imagine could and would escape from Hell. “These are nice.” 

He puts them on and they shimmer a little, blending in with his skin but otherwise still looking rather ordinary. 

“Okay.” You lick your lips. “What happens if I can’t find the person? Or I can’t bring them in? Or I can’t—” 

“You’ll figure it out,” he says dismissively. “The system ain’t half bad. They won’t give you more than you can handle. Probably haven’t given you a target yet because they don’t think you’re ready. When’d you die?” 

You think a moment. It’s the type of thing people don’t forget, and still it’s managed to seem unimportant, almost trivial in comparison to the rest of what’s happened. “March 9th, 2020.” 

He nods. “You’ve only been down here a couple days. Topside it’s only the 12th or something. Probably feels like more, but it hasn’t been. Time’s funny like that down here. Take a deep breath and don’t rush things. What’s a few days or weeks when you’ve got eternity in front of you?”

“Right,” you whisper. He’s got a point, but it’s an unsettling one and you try not to dwell on it.

He continues to collect items, holding a couple up to get your attention before they disappear into his bag or one of the many pockets on his coat. You remember the woman with the trenchcoat and make a mental note. Coats are apparently a thing in this line of work. 

“How long have you been dead?” you ask, more to make conversation because it really does feel like it’d been ages since you’d been here, mostly alone. 

“Died in…” He pauses to think, like he isn’t even sure anymore. Or maybe he doesn’t care, and you’re right that the date of your demise isn’t really as monumental as it was to your living self. “2014? Or was it 04?” He shrugs, like the difference of ten years truly didn’t matter. 

“And you’re still here?” you ask in alarm. The eternity thing is still in the back of your mind, but you didn’t think the time would stretch out  _ that _ carelessly. “That long and you still haven’t gotten your 100 souls?” 

He stops then, something dark peeking out the corners of his eyes. 

“You only need 100?” 

You immediately wish you’d said nothing at all. You’d rather not have the answers he’d given you if it means not being pinned under his gaze now. 

You shouldn’t ask, you really  _ really _ shouldn’t, but you do. “How many do  _ you _ owe them?” 

He takes a few steps down the ladder. You swear his eyes glowed faintly red around the edges. 

“Five hundred,” he says carefully. He says each syllable precisely, like he’s pounding them with a hammer into your head. 

“Five hundred?” you repeat on a gasp. 

“Five hundred,” he says with a bit more malice than before. “How’d you get off so easy? What’d you do?” 

You take a step back. Why  _ did _ you get off so easy? 

Then the lawyer in you rears its head again. You square your shoulders and narrow your eyes. “What did  _ you _ do to earn five hundred?” you snap back. 

He absolutely balks at you. “Excuse me?” 

“Punishments are supposed to fit the crime,” you say, gaining confidence as you go. “Look at Sisyphus and his boulder, and Tantalus being forever thirsty and hungry. And the Danaides, too, got what they deserved. You do something shitty, you get something shitty in return. I got 100 years, so they think I’m redeemable after 100. You’re by all accounts five times  _ worse _ than me, so I ask again: what did you  _ do _ ?” 

You have no idea if Greek Mythology of all things has any bearing down here at all. You saw some things, little glimpses at the tortures, and you don’t think it’s  _ complete _ garbage, even if the details might be a little fuzzed.

The guy stares at you like he wants to argue. He clenches his fists at his sides, narrows his eyes to thin, red slits. You don’t flinch, though. You’re not nobody, you’re not weak. You’re going to be wrangling in escapees from  _ Hell _ , for fuck’s sake. 

It’s an eternity, a staring match that apparently both of you have time for. 

He turns away, snatching a few more items with more force than is strictly necessary, and storms to the door. 

“Good fucking luck, Miss 100,” he sneers, and then he’s out the door and you kind of hope you don’t see him again. 

… At least not until you know what you’re doing, so you can rub it in that you’re not going to be stuck down here so long you forget that years matter. 


	2. Chapter 2

Hours that could be days or seconds pass, and still no one comes to see you with a name. The large door on the fall wall won’t open for you when you go to investigate it, so you leave it be. You’ve stopped asking questions when people flitter through. 

Instead you watch, you wait, and you experiment. 

There’s a pile of notebooks on the table that crowds the whole middle of the room, though sometimes it feels so small two people could walk side by side down the rows of shelves and sometimes it’s so wide you can barely wiggle through on your own. You’ve seen people grab notebooks without a second thought, so you do as well. 

They’re blank, some of them lined like the ones you used in school, others are blank white pages almost like a sketchbook. Some have crisp edges, some have thick pages that feel worn despite not being used. You pick one of the lined ones with a spiral edge, something familiar and comfortable, and grab one of the pens scattered across the mahogany wood. 

You divide the notebook into sections, folding pages to make a divider for each section so you can find them easily. 

Section 1: People

You meticulously note down each person you see, the other agents and their habits and their appearance. You have no idea if this is useful, but you do it anyway. People are important, in general, so you take notes. 

You especially take notes on the objects they choose, and that leads you to…

Section 2: Gadgets

You wait until the other agents have vacated the room and then you peruse the shelves and items they’d so casually poked through. You make a line of them on the desk and try them each, one by one. 

All of them look so  _ ordinary _ , things you would find in a yard sale or maybe at an antique shop or flea market. 

A broken watch, a plaid scarf, an umbrella that barely opened, a pair of sunglasses that sat uneven on your face no matter how you bent the frame, and dozens of others. 

The broken watch stayed broken until you put it on your wrist, and then it whirled to life. It projected a map, your location marked as just under Tucson, Arizona. You wonder if that is in fact true, and if so, it bears an significance. 

_ Above my pay grade _ , you think and take off the watch. 

You write a note in the book.  _ Broken watch = map. Useful. _

The scarf, once wrapped around you, strangles the air right out of your lungs. You can barely breathe, which is strange given that you are very much dead and do not  _ need _ to breathe, but the discomfort is alarming. You take it off quickly. 

You rub at your throat as you write another note.  _ Plaid scarf = suffocation device, works even on the dead. Useful for capturing ??? _

The umbrella opens only when you force it. It’s enormous, spreading out across the table and nearly reaching the ceiling. You wonder what you could possibly need such a big umbrella for, but as soon as it clicks into place, the material looks almost clear. Curious, you prop it up on the ground and walk around it. 

From behind or underneath the umbrella, depending on your perspective, it appears to be a pale mesh you can see through. From all other angles, it’s completely invisible, not even a seam visible to give it away. You can see right through it to the other end of the room. 

_ Umbrella = invisibility cloak. Useful for hiding/reconnaissance/following people. _

Then as an afterthought, you add:  _ Useful for rain ?? Disappointing if not. Investigate _

The sunglasses don’t appear to do anything at all, except function as normal sunglasses. You look high and low and see absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, you  _ feel _ nothing out of the ordinary. It’s only when you reach your hands up to take them off that you notice the faint glow to your skin. 

As subtly as possible, you slip them on when people enter the room. They all have the same faint glow to them, the ones you saw in your hands, but at their center, right at their heart, you see a darkness there. For some of them the darkness is a small, dense ball that beats with their heart. For others, it spreads out and drowns out the faint glimmer. It crawls down their arms and up their faces like a sickness. 

For one, who glares at you when she catches you looking, it’s consumed her eyes in pitch black, making them look sunken and empty. 

You shiver, and decide you’ve had enough of spying on them. 

When you check yourself again, you’re able to distinguish a small-ish ball of black, almost translucent around the edges. That’s a small comfort, you suppose.

_ Sunglasses = unclear — identifies the dead?? shows how rotten their soul is?? Investigate further. _

On and on it goes, your middle section of the notebook filling up. You put stars next to the ones you think will be the most helpful, though you suppose that you won’t really know until you try it. You both dread and look forward to your first target, your first hunt, your first chance to see daylight and  _ people _ , real people who don’t hiss at you as they pass. 

On the thirteenth day, assuming you have any concept of days, a slip of paper appears under the door. The first door, the one you entered through, the one that sometimes leaks menacing noises and radiates red light. You bend down and pick it up, smoothing out the parchment to read it.

_ Helga Meierhoff _ _   
_ _ Baton Rouge, Louisiana _ _   
_ __ 100 souls remaining

You smile to yourself, squeezing the parchment in your excitement. 

Finally, you have your first chance. 

Finally, you get to start working on that debt you owe.

And, as silly as it might be, you know you’re giddy because  _ finally _ , you might have some fun.

You open up your notebook to the third, yet unused section. 

Section 3: Targets

You tape the little slip of paper to the top of the first blank page. 

Carefully, you close your notebook and tuck it into the messenger bag you’ve found in a trunk nestled on the lowest bookshelf in the corner. You grab five, six, seven items you hope will be useful and then with a confidence you haven’t quite earned but can’t shake, you boldly cross towards the stone doorway. The door clicks open as you reach for the handle, and off you go.

Up up up.

_ Watch out, Helga Meierhoff, _ you think with a grin.  _ I’m coming for you... _


	3. Chapter 3

Your shoulder aches dully, more the memory of what it should feel like than actual pain, as you push your weight against the bulky, tattooed man who wiggles uselessly in your grasp. The leather gloves make it impossible for him to overpower you, and you quickly wrap the measuring tape around his wrists. 

It must look ridiculous, wrapping the unbreakable measuring tape you use instead of handcuffs around the wrists of a man twice your size, only held in place by magic gloves that give you uncanny strength. 

But it  _ is _ magic, and you suspect to the untrained,  _ living _ eye, this whole altercation barely even registers in their conscious mind. 

“Alright, big boy,” you say once you’ve secured the rogue soul. “Let’s get you back where you belong, yeah?”

He growls at the nickname. Through your sunglasses, you see the blackness of his heart thrumming in anger, and you know from experience that this is a murderer you’re bringing back to Hell. 

Not the serial killer, cold calculating psychopath kind. You’ve captured that type of murderer, and they’re a completely different breed. They’re hard to find, smart enough to know they’re being hunted, and usually still actively killing. They’re dangerous, and you were almost proud the first time you were assigned one as a target. It meant they thought you could handle it, and you  _ did _ . 

No, this guy here, this big mass of muscles with anger lines etched into his face is a different kind of killer. More of the loses his temper and beats his wife or maybe loses a bet and pummels a guy to death with a pool cue. 

Not hard to find, not hard to capture. He’s a dime a dozen, really, and you’re more shocked that he avoided Hell at all, but oh well. 

Not your problem. 

The nearest door is a few blocks down, and you expertly lead your captive that way. Some try to bargain with you, all sorts of promises of wealth and power and warm bodies to fuck at night. You think that’s why they escape in the first place. They think too much like when they were alive, think those are the same motivating factors that drive the dead. 

“What the fuck am I going to do with money?” you asked the first man, some wall street douche who’d killed his partner for the life insurance policy. Probably did a whole lot more, but that’s all you could find in the newspaper clippings you found on him. 

“What  _ wouldn’t _ you do with it?” he’d asked, bewildered. 

You hadn’t been sure how to answer that, because he should know by now. You’re all dead, you don’t need to eat or drink or sleep or do any of that stuff. Creature comforts are nice, but it’s more like going through the motions of relaxing than anything else. Hell’s got a claim to your soul, and it settles in like a restlessness, an almost burning, whenever you get  _ too _ comfortable. 

You never really take it easy, so the feeling doesn’t bother you much. It must scald these fuckers from the inside out, the ones who try to escape, and you can’t figure how Mr. Wall Street could be okay with that feeling, even if he gets to keep drinking his martinis and being a dick to the help. You can’t think of an amount of money, even when you were alive and could enjoy everything you bought with it, that would balance that out. 

No, you like where you are, working on the debt you owe and hopefully getting that Hell feel off you. You don’t want to find yourself on the rack one day, and you’re more than happy to put these scumbags on there instead of you. 

This guy, Big and Bulky, he didn’t try to bribe you. He stood straight, shoulders back, and tried to use his presence to intimidate you. 

_ Go ahead and try, _ big boy, you think.  _ You ain’t the worst I’ve taken down. _

He really really isn’t. You’ve taken down those psychopath killers that would slice this guy into a million pieces for fun. Nazis, of the Neo and traditional variety and the Klan kind, too. Rapists and child abusers and sexual predators. Politicians and leaders who’d committed war crimes so terrible it makes your stomach turn. 

Tracking this guy down and bringing him is honestly a vacation by comparison to some of the cases you’ve had. 

In the back of your head, though, you sometimes wonder what it means that these terrible, awful people are the ones who escape Hell. Their souls are black and rotten, and yours is just a little black in the middle. How could people like that and people like you be going to the same place? You’d never killed anyone. You’d never beaten or tortured anyone, and the times you were really cruel to others, using your words to tear them apart, it might have felt good in the moment, this raw sort of power, but you’d felt the guilt afterwards. 

These people… you’ve never seen any guilt. 

_ That’s why you hunt them down, _ you point out.  _ You got that offer because you’re  _ **_not_ ** _ as bad as them. You can cancel out the bad you do have with theirs. _

_ … Except you’ve seen souls just as black as these wander through the waiting room, grabbing their equipment and going off to bring back another name, another soul, another target.  _

You push open the door that leads down down down.

All his macho bravado disappears as soon as the door locks shut behind you, the outline disappearing completely and shutting out the real world behind you. He tenses and starts to dig in his heels a little. He opens his mouth to speak, and you push him none too gently forward. 

“Whatever you’re going to say, save it. I don’t give a shit. I dug up the police reports on you while I tracked you down. She was your  _ niece _ ,” you spit the accusation. 

“That was ten minutes!” he mutters under his breath. “Ten minutes and I gotta pay for the rest of eternity?” 

You don’t answer. Morals and ethics were courses in law school, but it’s murky water you never much liked to tread. Never much changed the confines of what your job allowed.

New job, same idea. 

“Bet that ten minutes felt like an eternity to her,” you snap, and you take comfort in that. 

“What are they going to do to me?” he asks, though not until you’ve descended several flights. 

“Don’t know, don’t care,” you say honestly. “But you probably deserve it.” 

Sentencing isn’t your responsibility, now or then, and some systems required you to have faith in the process. 

This time, questions of faith and attacks of conscience won’t get you disbarred. They’ll get you locked up in Hell forever, and in the bad way where they torture you instead of in the less bad way where they make you do their grunt work. 

Great. 

You finally reach the landing that leads to the corridor of halls you’ve come to know well. There are maps lining the walls, ones that outline which door leads where. Most of them lead to other places on Earth, getting you across continents in a matter of minutes. It’s convenient, especially the times you’ve cut off a target escaping via plane or boat. Surprise! You’ve been waiting in the airport the whole flight. 

The rather boring looking door on far end, the one with chipped paint and a loose doorknob that requires a firm grip to open, is the one you head for. You’ve used this door the most, and you head through it without a second thought. 

There’s a moment when you feel a shock, a little bolt of electricity that gives you goosebumps. It’s quick, only there as you pass the threshold, but it makes your target gasp and then whine. It’s a pathetic sound, and it kind of makes you smile. 

You’ve somehow become badass over the years if Hell doesn’t make you whimper. That’s something, right?

There is a surprising lack of paperwork in Hell, and you do appreciate that, but old habits die hard. Once your guy is turned in for his eternal damnation and fire, etc. you pull out your notebook. Legs propped on the table top, you flip to the very back. There are a couple pages left at the back, most of the pages in your Targets section filled with notes on their pasts, their whereabouts, and how you finished up their case. 

You do that now. You end your notes on  _ Victor Brown  _ with a summary of how you caught him. 

You have your next name already, always given when you bring in a new person. The tradeoff is immediate, your next assignment beginning the very instant the old one ends. It’s efficient, but you long for down time between. 

It’s part of why you take the time to work on your notebook. The routine of it helps you detox before heading back out to start again. All the others that fly through here live in a rotating door that makes you dizzy just watching them. 

You don’t want that, not even if it means getting you out a bit faster. 

It makes you wonder sometimes if that’s why the other “agents” have darker souls than you. If living nothing but hunting makes them worse, and if maybe the others use methods a lot more harsh than the ones you stick to. 

Delaying a little longer, you grab another spiral notebook and duct tape it to the back of your old one. You’re mostly done with the first two sections, but you’ve got a ways to go yet before you finish your end of the deal. May as well be prepared in case your next hunt needs more than the three pages left.

Once you’re done, you slide the folded piece of parchment closer to you. It squeaks as it moves across the surface of the table. You finger the edges of the paper before sighing. No point in putting it off any longer. 

You pick it up and unfold it carefully, savoring the last seconds before you’re officially on the clock. 

The same crisp handwritten waits for you, but this time, unlike every other time you’ve gotten a name, you gasp in surprise.

_ Courtney Brewer _ _   
_ _ Buenos Aires, Argentina _ _   
_ __ 32 souls remaining

“Fuck,” you hiss out. You close your eyes and take a deep breath in and out, in and out again. You open your eyes, maybe part of you hoping the name will have changed, but no, it’s the same. 

Courtney Brewer. 

A client of yours, one of the first you defended. 

And now you have to bring her in.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the newest installment! from here on out the updates will go up as soon as i finish them :)

You hold out hope that this is some other Courtney Brewer. Courtney’s a common enough name, and there have certainly been hundreds of Brewers over the centuries. You once hunted down an old man from the late 17th century, so this could easily be some other Courtney Brewer from some other lifetime entirely. 

It’s not. You have that gut instinct that it isn’t, and your preliminary research proves you right. 

Shit. 

You navigate Buenos Aires to a seedier section of town, one you recognize from previous encounters with escaped souls. For some reason the whole “escape to Argentina” thing has settled into the minds of most Americans, even though Hell doesn’t care about extradition laws and all that. 

When you find Courtney, she’s taking refuge in a small one bedroom apartment. It has no view, no real amenities, nothing to explain her choice except that she knows people are looking for her and she’s avoiding them. 

You pinch the bridge of your nose, an old habit to hold off the headache you expect but ones that never come anymore, and try to think. 

Courtney wasn’t just one of your first big wins. She was your first murder trial. You defended this woman,  _ believed _ her when she said she killed her husband in self-defense. The evidence said it, but so did the earnest look in her eyes. You’d been young and naive enough to hope that you could always defend the good ones, but even later, after you’d defended some not so good ones and some downright awful ones, you still believed in Courtney Brewer. 

And now she’s on your list of escapees from Hell. 

Did she do it? Were you wrong all along, some chump her believed her sob story and sold it to the jury? 

_ You’d have sold it even if you didn’t believe it, _ you remind yourself.  _ It was your job. _

It still doesn’t sit right with you. 

You consider for a good three days, laying low yourself while you keep tabs on Courtney. She doesn’t do much. She sticks to her apartment, only coming out to visit the local market for food. Food isn’t a necessity for the dead and you find it all tastes like ash now, anyway, but for some the habit is too hard to break. If gluttony were a real sin, you’ve seen plenty of people indulging in it post mortem. 

Courtney liked to cook, if you remember correctly. She was that mom who went all out for the bake sale, the one whose cookies and pies sold out at the church fair. It’s probably how she relaxes, now that the eating part is out of the equation. 

Fuck, you really wish you didn’t know her so well. You wish you didn’t know her  _ at all _ . Discovering how shitty people are through your research put the necessary distance between you and them, made them “escaped soul from Hell” and not “actual human being” because actual human beings are complicated and painted with shades of grey. 

The sunglasses sit heavy in the front pocket of your jacket. It’d be easy to put them on and measure just how black Courtney’s soul is, but that would mean confirming the doubts you have right now. The longer you delay, the longer you can live in the fantasy that you did good by Courtney Brewer and her husband deserved what he got. 

But three days is too long. Not in the amount of time, that’s meaningless. No, it’s too long to be indecisive. It doesn’t help you to sit on your hands and do nothing, and maybe you’ve already helped Courtney enough. You gave her a lifetime of freedom, after all. Now it’s time to pay the piper. 

You walk up the steps to Courtney’s apartment, not even bothering to be sneaky about it. When the cops found Courtney, she hadn’t run. She’d given herself up quietly, bravely keeping the tears from her face as she was arrested in front of her kids and mother. This should be more of the same, a repeat of history, really.

Nothing you’ve seen has changed your mind on that. She’ll be easy to take in, and she won’t run.

So you go up the steps, each one harder than the last. You stare at the yellow painted door to her apartment, hand half raised to knock for long enough that the neighbors have probably noticed you loitering in the hallway. 

Ugh, this is the worst. 

You knock. 

There’s noise on the other side of the door, hesitant footsteps and the sound of the door unlocking. Courtney pulls it open, the chain keeping it tethered to the door frame, and squints out into the bright light of the hallway. 

And then her eyes go wide as she recognizes you. 

“Oh!” she says and slams the door shut. You briefly wonder if you were in fact wrong, that she  _ is _ a runner and you’ve made a huge tactical error, but then you hear the chain sliding and she swings the door wide open for you. “It’s you!” 

“It’s me,” you agree. You linger on the threshold. It feels dishonest to accept the invitation when Courtney clearly doesn’t know why you’re here. You step inside, anyway. 

Courtney closes and locks the door behind you, ushering you into the small living space that’s devoid of any personal touches but still somehow cramped and claustrophobic. You’d seen this all from your vantage point across the street, through that window over there with the sheer curtains half pulled, but something about being in the actual space changes it. Makes it more real, you think, as you soak in the atmosphere of a woman on the run. 

“Why are you here?” 

You blink, startled by the question even though it’s an obvious one. 

“Uh—” 

“Are you going to help me?” she asks hopefully. 

“Help you what?” you ask dumbly. You know what she wants, what she needs, just like you know that there’s nothing you can do to help her now.

“Escape,” she breathes out. “They took me to Hell. Those nasty things, those… those…” 

The creatures or people or shadows or whatever it is that drags you to Hell, they appear different to everyone. Yours are  _ things _ crammed into the shape of people, their otherness poking through the edges. They wear human faces, though poorly, like an ill fitting suit they refuse to have tailored properly, but their eyes are many pupiled and too big. Because they masquerade as human, they are more or less eye level with you. 

That’s how you knew they appear differently to different people, when your prisoners would stare up or down at a spot nowhere near where you considered their head to be. 

“The Hellspawn,” you say, putting a hand up to stop her. You don’t really want to know  _ what _ other people see, since your own perception is terrifying enough. “They took you.” 

“Yes.” Courtney wrings her hands. “They said… they said that’s where I belonged, and that I’d be punished for everything I’d done…” Her voices drops and she mutters to herself, “I probably deserve it.”

Never, not one single time, had one of your targets shown the slightest hint of remorse. There was no guilt, there was no acceptance of their deserving punishment. Yes, they owned the fact that they were not good people, it was more that they didn’t care, that it shouldn’t  _ matter _ that they were bad. 

“We’ve talked about this,” you say, a little too angrily. “Don’t admit guilt. Don’t say you deserve bad things, or—” Or what? The jury might think it’s true? They might misread your words not as those of someone suffering from years of abuse, who genuinely doesn’t think they deserve better, but as those of someone who murdered for something other than self defense. 

There’s no jury this time, or if there is, they’ve already made their decision. 

“What happened after they took you?” you say instead. 

“I got scared, so when they led me by a door, I pushed them and went through it. I ran and ran and ran and… Well…” She gestures to her apartment, dark and gloomy and miserable because she’s made it that way. “Here I am, hiding.” 

“Here you are,” you agree. And now what? “Let’s go back a bit, okay? Tell me everything. Your life, your death, everything you’ve been doing since. Help me understand the big picture.” 

She nods and takes a seat on the stained couch. You can’t bear to sit, so you pace as she talks. You only half listen. Most of your energy is spent trying not to reach for the sunglasses. 

It’s only when Courtney asks you, “So what do I do?” with a broken voice that is so profoundly  _ lost _ do you take them out. 

You don’t answer her, not yet, because that awful, terrible hope is still rooted deep in your chest. The answer is, of course, that you will escort her back to Hell and maybe you could play lawyer some more and try to work out a deal for her like the one you have. 

Maybe. If you like what you see. 

With undue care, you open the sunglasses. You put them on, still staring at the ground. From this angle, you can see your own constant swirl of blackness at your heart, and you take it in. You memorize the size and shape of it, as a benchmark, and then force yourself to look up. 

You see Courtney, glittering in the dying sunlight. She shines more than most, that faint glow all dead people radiate not the brightest but certainly distinct, catches you off guard a moment.

It’s nothing compared to what you feel when you focus on her heart. 

“Oh fuck me,” you breathe out. 

There, where you expect to find a ball of blackness of some indeterminate size, you see a ball of white. True, the edges are grey and some parts even bleed black, but there’s _ white _ . Her core isn’t rotten, it’s… it’s… 

It’s  _ good _ . She didn’t play at being a good person when she was alive, she really  _ is _ good. 

_ Mostly good,  _ you correct, your eyes tracing the grey and black to see how far out it goes, how much there really is. Not much is the answer. Definitely less than  _ you _ .

“What?” Courtney asks nervously. She’d eyed the sunglasses with skepticism before, and now she looks downright petrified. “Is something wrong?” 

Yes. 

“No,” you say gently. You take off the sunglasses because what a mindfuck. That’s… that’s wrong. You didn’t see that. You don’t even know how these things  _ work _ . Maybe it’s backwards, it’s been backwards all along. Maybe— 

But no. You’ve seen Nazi officers who’d enjoyed watching thousands upon thousands burn, and their souls are a black hole of bad. With the sunglasses on, they look more shadow than person. There’s no way  _ you’re _ worse than them, and you don’t think the glasses are wishful thinking either. You’re not seeing yourself and Courtney this way because you  _ want _ to. It’d be a metric fuckton easier on you if Courtney  _ were _ the blackhearted monster the rest of your prisoners are. 

No, you’ve got the aching suspicion that you’re seeing things the way they are. 

You pocket the sunglasses. 

“I have to go. I have to… look into a few things. I’ll be back,” you add when you see her tense up. “I’ll be back once I have some answers, okay? You keep doing what you’re doing and hide out here.” 

“Okay.” Her relief is palpable, her own hope shining through her bright eyes. “Thank you.” 

You rush out of there after that. 

Thank you is the  _ last _ thing you want to hear.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not going to lie, i'm making this up as i go from here on out XD i'd only really thought through the courtney chapter and now i'm just letting the narrative take me where it wants to go lol
> 
> thank you for reading <3

You leave Courtney’s apartment and walk. You leave the building, pick a direction, and go. Miles, probably, because it takes you that long to settle down. 

It’s a long hike back to Buenos Aires, and you take advantage of it. Your mind’s clear enough to think, and there’s a  _ lot _ to think about. 

Courtney’s in trouble, that much is clear. You have no clue how to help her. Who do you even go to? Who do you tell? When you hand off prisoners downstairs, they don’t linger long enough to ask you questions. Do they do trials down there? Courtney didn’t mention a trial, and you were never really present for your own sentencing or whatever that resulted in your deal for a clean slate. 

Would it even matter, since she ran? 

Why was she even down there in the first place? Her soul’s a little beaten up but she’s the cleanest you’ve seen of the dead you’ve encountered. If  _ she’s _ not good enough to get out of Hell, who is? 

Who the fuck can you talk to? 

You’re in a crowded market and stop. You look around, not bothering for casual and earning yourself a few stares from tourists and locals alike. It takes you a few minutes, but you zero in on the type of person you’re looking for.

At a lonely cafe table pulled away from the others sits an equally lonely figure. Their clothes are old fashioned and way too heavy for the weather, though they don’t seem to mind the heat. A plate of food and a cup of coffee sit untouched in front of her, the cup likely still fool and the liquid lukewarm inside it. They’re fiddling with a cracked monocle, breathing on it and wiping it clean again and again, and you know without a shadow of a doubt they’re one of you. 

No better plan in mind than to talk, you speed walk over and take a seat across from her.

“How do I give up on a name?” you ask before they can look too surprised.

She (he? even this close they’re so androgynous you can’t tell, and their voice gives nothing away, all velvet smoothness, only the lush dress giving you any sort of hint at all) looks bewildered. “What?” 

“I get a target, I don’t—  _ can’t _ bring them in. What do I do?” 

“Then you’re  _ stuck _ ,” they say, emphasis on the guttural  _ ck _ sound. 

“Stuck?” you repeat, and part of you tries to model a normal pronunciation of the word. “So I never get a new name? We both get to roam free on Earth? No one comes looking for us?” 

They snort. “Well, I suppose someone will come looking  _ eventually _ .” A pause as a fiendish smile spreads across their face, showing canines weathered yellow. “For you.”

Great. Your name will be on some piece of parchment, helping someone else tick away at their total while yours remains in constant limbo. 

Like you would, you suppose. 

“What if they don’t deserve to be in Hell? Who can I talk to?” 

This earns more surprise, but also an eyebrow raised over the top of the monocle. It’s such a normal human gesture that it takes you aback. Nothing about this person is normal and they only technically register as human. 

“I beg your pardon, but  _ what _ ?” they ask. 

Now the emphasis is on the invisible  _ h _ in  _ what _ , and you couldn’t for the life of you place their accent if the world depended on it. Southern or British or something more foreign, someone who learned English as a second or third or fourth or hundredth language long ago and never quite decided which way to pronounce the words. 

“Who can I talk to downstairs about a case? Like if I have some problems or questions or need to sort some shit out?” 

“No one. The doors won’t even open for you if you don’t have a prisoner to exchange. Except of course to the equipment room, you could go back there, but as you know there’s no one there to talk to but us.” 

You try a different tact. 

“Who judges people down there, anyway? Are we judged by some objective moral code or on the mores of the time? Is it for our own society, or own determination of what does or doesn’t count as good?” 

That could explain Courtney. She would condemn herself to Hell for what she did to her husband… but she did run away, so maybe not. Never mind that plenty of people you’ve hunted down don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, or wrong enough. 

“Who decides?” you ask weakly. 

“Darling,” they say with an amused sort of pity, “I know as much as you do. Well in general, I know more since I’ve been around quite a deal longer, but I don’t know more about  _ this _ . It’s not like they give us a manual explaining the inner workings of down there or up here or up there.” 

“Right.” Because knowing would be cheating, wouldn’t it? 

To distract yourself, you pull out the sunglasses and put them on. The figure across from you looks far more ghoulish under the tinted light, their limbs long and thin and their skin too pale under the blaring sun. There’s black at their heart, a beating pulse of bad that spreads out like smoke with each breath out, coils back in with each inhale.

Not the worst you’ve seen… but they’re still around, out here hunting like they owe souls. They’re clearly from another era, completely removed from their original time and place, yet still not done tallying up their debt. 

Why?  _ How _ ? 

You’ve been at this for maybe five years, give or take. Time’s hard to judge when it jumps or crawls in the time you’re below. The years on the calendar tell you one thing, but your head tells you another, and you sort of split the difference. 

Five ish years. Seventy ish souls. Within a decade you’d have one hundred for sure. 

Assuming any sort of link between the two, in a hundred years you’d have one thousand souls. To be more than a century removed from the time you lived, that’s… 

Well, that’s a shit ton of souls you’d owe. 

You must zone out for a moment, because the world suddenly snaps into focus when you see movement.

“Are those—?” They visibly straighten and leans forward, impossibly long fingers stretching out for the glasses. 

You pull them out of their reach and tuck them into your jacket pocket. 

“Are they what?” you demand. You wouldn’t be in this particular mess if it weren’t for Courtney and these damn sunglasses. 

“Those aren’t allowed anymore,” they say. Their eyes are fixed on the pocket, and you not so subtly cross your hands over your chest in a silent warning that yes, you are paying attention and no, they’re not getting her hands on them. With reluctance, they meet your gaze. “They show a person’s soul. They burned them all. Where did you get those?” 

“The equipment room,” you say and give no more details than that. They were the only pair that you saw, but there might be others. You’re tempted to go back down and check, to hoard them, though you’re not even sure why you care. 

Maybe later. 

“Why were they banned?” You’re back in court, cross examining a witness, and you better get the answers you want. 

Even if they’re not the ones you want to hear. 

“I don’t know.” There it is again, the odd lilt to their words that almost makes it sound like They’ve said a distinct k and n sound. There’s also a smugness there that suggests they  _ absolutely _ know more than they’re letting on. 

“Are they broken?” 

“Broken? They’re yours, you would know, wouldn’t you? Though if you need help figuring out how to use them, I suppose I could offer my services...” 

Definitely smug. 

“No thanks,” you say with a fake smile. They wrinkle their nose at you and quickly look away, as though the sight bothers them. 

You wonder, briefly, if your appearance has changed at all over the years. This person and the other agents from Hell you’ve seen, they look inhuman even without the glasses on. Their appearance is distorted in disturbing ways, just outside of normal on first glance though the differences come into sharp focus the longer you look at them. 

What do they see when they look at you? 

“You know something,” you insist. “A rumor, maybe, but you saw or heard  _ something _ about these. You wouldn’t  _ want _ them so badly if you hadn’t.” 

Their eyes flit to your face and away, lightning quick. Deeming it safe, they turn back towards you. “Whatever it is they show, the bosses don’t like people seeing it. The way they depict the souls… It brought up too many questions.” A pause and their eyes go wide in horror. “Questions like the ones you’re asking…” 

Now they look around nervously, suddenly worried about something more dangerous than you. In a whirl of skirts and what you can only assume is a petticoat, they’re standing. 

You stand too and reach for them, barely grabbing a handful of voluminous sleeve before they’re gone. “What did they do to the people who asked questions?” you ask.

You know, though. Even if the details aren’t clear, the implications are. 

“Keep asking and I’m sure you’ll find out,” they hiss. An actual hiss, serpentine down to their tongue darting out between pointed teeth. “Let me go. I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I swear it. But I will  _ not _ be dragged down with you.” 

There’s not an ounce of sincerity in the words. You know liars when you see them. This is self preservation, pure desperation to get away and tell you anything you want to hear to do it. They’d sell you out in an instant if push came to shove. 

Well before that, likely. 

“There’s no one to tell,” you point out as you let go. “No one to complain  _ to _ .” 

You hope it’s true. Based on the sneer you get before they rush off through the crowds, knocking over their abandoned food and drink, you think it’s at least a  _ little _ true. They’re not scurrying away to snitch on you and your ‘dangerous’ questions, they’re simply trying to put distance between you so they can’t be implicated by proximity or by this conversation.

For now, you’re safe. 

… Could keep being safe, if you’d just turn Courtney in. 

You sigh, leaning back in your chair and waving over a server. You order a coffee and some pastry you mispronounce terribly. They’d all taste bland regardless, so you don’t particularly mind what they bring you. 

What you want is to go through the motions. You want to take refuge in a snack. You want to pick your pastry apart piece by piece, you want to sip your coffee while it’s hot and then savor it while it’s the perfect temperature. You want to pretend this is simply another unfortunate turn in a court case, one where you have to make an unpleasant decision. 

The decision’s already been made, you know this. Your fate was sealed the moment you got these glasses and then later when they handed you the name they did. You wonder, briefly, if they knew what they were up to when they did it. 

The server drops off your snack and you smile appreciatively. She looks at the spaces around you—the living never seem to look directly  _ at _ you—and smiles pleasantly. 

You nibble at the food and try to plan out how exactly you’re going to handle this fucking mess… 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hit a bit of a writing block and then a bit of a time block XD figured out what i need to do going forward (for the most part) and that should help me with the next few pieces :)

It's with no small amount of doubt that you head back to Courtney's flat. There's the easy path and the  _ right _ path, and not too first time you wish you wish you were able to take the easy path. You'd tried to be  _ that lawyer _ for years before you'd given up, the memory of honestly and justly won cases making you "picky."

Not your word for it. That's how the other lawyers described your unwillingness to pick up obviously guilty clients unless the price was right. 

Like you weren't living the dream, bouncing between wealthy and innocent clients. 

Probably why you'd get sent to Hell in the first place, giving money and innocence the same weight. 

You make your way back to Courtney's place. It's late at night when you knock at the door. You feel the burden of your future like a physical weight. You might as well be drunk, the perfect mix of giddy and anxious and confident. 

You shouldn't be confident. This isn't some court case that a cocky lawyer can win. This is both your souls. Eternal damnation and all that. 

Steep price to pay when you  _ really _ don't have to do this. The safe, easy way is still open. 

32 souls and you're free. Fuck whoever gets in the way, right? Courtney  _ killed _ someone, whether it was justified or not.

It's  _ never _ easy, though. Even those rare moments when you knew the right path, there has always been a struggle to get there.

"You're back." She sounds as surprised as you are. It hurts that she doesn't trust you after everything. 

To be fair, you didn't come up with this plan without a lot of consideration. It'd taken you days to come up with and then commit to the plan you're currently trying.

"Can we talk?" You immediately wince, because no good has ever come from that question.

Eyes wide, she nods. She'd been too trusting in life, it doesn't surprise you she still is even after a trip to Hell. She opens the door wide for you once again, and once again slams it shut and locks it once you’re safely inside.

"I’m not a lawyer anymore,” you say. You have to start with the truth if you’re going to earn that trust. “I’m dead, too.” 

She blinks at you and frowns. “I know, I heard about it. Car accident, wasn’t it?” 

You remember a great deal of your life with vivid clarity. You could describe your old apartment in minute detail, your old routine, your most memorable cases, your childhood, all of it’s still rattling around in your head. The specifics aren’t incredibly useful anymore—it’s not like you’re  _ living _ that life anymore, so knowing your old route to work is garbage info cluttering your brain—but they’re there, waiting for you to recall them if needed. 

Your death, though? Not so much. 

It shocks you a little to realize you’ve never given it much thought, and so you’ve never noticed that blank spot in your memories. You were in Hell, so obviously you’d died. 

At the words car accident, images come back to you. A dark rain-slick road, an unexpected curve, the screech of your tires not catching, and then the world imploding in on itself. 

“Yes,” you say with a slight tremor in your voice. You find you’re clutching at your throat, so you cough to clear it and lower your hand into your jacket pocket. There are some coins in there, and you fiddle with them to ignore the way you’re shaking a little. “Car accident.” 

Courtney waits for you to keep going, a gentle nod of her head nudging you forward. 

“Right. So I’m… an agent of Hell?” you say, not sure if that’s even right but it’s certainly not all wrong. “They send me to bring back people who have escaped—” 

She gasps, that type of gasp where her hands fly to her mouth and she grows pale. “You’re here for me?” Her cry is muffled by her hands, but you hear it loud and clear. 

You wince and shrug. “Kind of?” 

There’s a second, maybe a whole three seconds, where you’re both motionless as the weight of that revelation settles. Then Courtney’s rushing towards the far window, the one with a fire escape, and you’re almost a beat too slow to duck in front of her and cut her off. 

“Shit, don’t run!” you gasp and half dive to grab her. You get her forearm and squeeze tight enough that she’d have to work to break your grasp but not so tight that it would bruise. “Hear me out!” 

“I can’t go back there!” she pleads. She wiggles, only enough to test the strength of your hold. When she determines overpowering you isn’t an option, she stops. “Don’t make me go back!” 

“Look, I don’t  _ want _ to, but...”

But  _ why _ ? 

Because you have  _ questions _ ? Because you’ve got some crackpot scheme that puts Courtney in a lot more danger than leaving her here and going to figure this shit out on your own? 

“Wait.” She frowns, suddenly more wary than before, as you snap back to the present. “You could’ve taken me anywhere and I would’ve followed you. We could’ve gone when you first found me. You didn’t, though. You didn’t trick me and you’re telling me the truth now. I don’t get it.” 

“Sit down and hear me out?” you offer. “I have a plan. Kind of.” 

She raises an eyebrow.

“I have part of a plan,” you amend. Honesty’s the best policy, right? “I don’t think you belong in Hell, and I want to get you where you should be.” 

“Okay,” she says. Her hesitation is palpable, and you don’t blame her. It mirrors your own. You have a good thing going. Not great, but way better than the alternatives. If they’ve decided Courtney belongs on the chopping block, who are you to rock the boat? 

Your soul isn’t as good of shape as Courtney’s, and you could cloak yourself in its blackness to get out of this. 

The problem is, your soul isn’t  _ that _ bad. 

“You’ll have to go back to Hell,” you say, then quickly add, “literally go back to the whole underground Hell thing. I’m not turning you in, but I need to bring you there.” 

Her chest heaves with how hard she’s breathing (or maybe she’s just trying not to cry). “Why?” 

“Because I have to go back. I don’t know what’ll happen to you if I leave you here. They’ll probably send someone else for you once they figure out what’s happening, and no matter who they send, they’re probably worse than me. They won’t hesitate to bring you in, and they’ll be a lot rougher. I can protect you if you’re with me.” 

Sort of. You use the idea of protection loosely, meaning specifically against the other bounty hunters working for Hell. Against Hell itself, there’s not a whole lot you can do. Except this, this stupid Hail Mary of a plan. 

“Then what?” she asks. Her skepticism has won over the fear for now, though it’s still lurking around the edges, waiting to come back if she doesn’t like what she hears. 

“I have to go back so I can ask questions. You have to come with me so they—” 

“Don’t take me to the place I’m going anyway?” she says wryly. “You going to act as my lawyer again?” 

“Guess so.” 

The walk down down down the winding stairs is tense, tenser than usual. It’s probably as bad for Courtney as for everyone else you’ve lead back to Hell. The uncertainty might even make it worse, her free will to still escape making each step feel like she’s sinking in quicksand. 

You only think that because you feel the same. Your stomach twists into knots as you run through your plan over and over. There’s so much room for error, such a marginal chance for gain. It’s like being in court only a million times worse because it’s your tail on the line as much as Courtney’s. 

But this isn’t just about Courtney. 

This is about the others, the ones whose souls shine too brightly for what they’re getting. It’s about whatever happened that made them ban these stupid sunglasses. There are cracks in the system—there always are in a bureaucracy—but this is the one thing where there  _ cannot _ be problems. This is eternity, people deserve things to go right. 

It’s like a fucking Supreme Court case, and you feel terribly unprepared. 

You keep Courtney protectively behind you as you approach the door. Opening it means turning Courtney in and sticking to the status quo. You don’t open it. You’re careful to not put too much pressure on it as you leave the envelope and knock three times. You don’t know why three times, but three always comes up in stories like this, so why not? 

The sound echoes in the hallway. You think you hear a noise on the other side, footsteps or a growl. You don’t wait for it to open. Instead you grab Courtney’s hand and run for the equipment room, the only place you can think to go. 

When you’re inside, part of you wants to barricade the door. That would defeat the purpose, though. You need a meeting, you need someone to come talk. 

…That doesn’t mean you can’t dig around for a few weapons. Fortune favors the prepared or something like that, right?

“Now what?” Courtney asks, breathless. She’s shaking with a nervous energy, the type that has her itching to act and you without much to offer her.

You pull out a yard stick and toss it to her. It looks like a beat up length of wood abandoned in some old grade school closet, but it packs a wallop. For yourself you pull out a squirt gun. It is in fact an actual squirt gun, complete with a very innocuous looking clear liquid inside. 

It’s holy water, or maybe the holy water thing is just your presumption and it’s really acid. You’re not sure, but everyone you’ve shot with it has screamed in pain as the liquid has steamed on their skin. You stopped using it after maybe three times, the all too real agony too much for you. They were already going to Hell, no need to hurt them, too.

“Now? Now we wait. And maybe pray, though I don’t know how much good that does down here.”

Or up there.

Or at all. 

“Right,” she laughs and shakes her head. “Fun plan.” 

“Only one I got.” 

“So how does this work…” She gives the yard stick an experimental swing. It hits the edge of a wall by accident and leaves a dent in the concrete. Her eyes go wide. “Oh whoa.” 

“Yep. Here, lemme show you. May as well practice while we wait…”


End file.
